As a kid growing up St. Louis, Missouri, I lived in a predominantly black neighborhood. Any time people talked about slavery, it was always something like, 'If I was a slave, I wouldn't have been putting up with that. I would have been out in a heartbeat.' And it's like, sure, it's a very easy thing to say.
The question of religion in black America is something filmmakers don't want to touch.
I'm a black American, I am proud of my race. I am proud of who I am. I have a lot of pride and dignity.
I got out of the Army - in my world - I came to New York, for instance, when the civil rights movement was just beginning, and that created a certain energy, a certain rumble, a certain impetus for black actors.
Honestly, six months before getting 'Orange Is the New Black,' I remember telling my manager I was done.
I used to think I was ugly. I thought I looked like a camel. A person who doesn't love themselves, they will see anything that pops up on their face. I've seen squirrels, I've seen a bird, and I've seen all kinds of animals on my face. But that is the result of self-hate. I've learned to say: 'You know what? I am a beautiful black woman'.
Who is a terrorist? Is it not the person who has been persecuting human beings simply because they are black?
The thing about being black and having a different accent, in the beginning, is that it makes you foreign.
Why don't they make the whole plane out of that black box stuff.
One year, we tried to deep-fry a turkey. It must have been really humid outside, because the temperature of the oil got thrown off. It ended up being slow-cooked in oil - black on the outside and raw on the inside.
I try to speak my points of view about black America, and how I feel about black men and the role that black men should play in their lives with their children and in their lives with their women.
Bootworks' Black Box Theatre has a maximum seating capacity of two - as long as one of you is happy to sit on the other's lap.
Black people should have recognition for themselves and their backgrounds and their relationships with other people in the world and thus lose some of their alienation. This museum has certainly stood for that in this town.
Our effects were primitive. Our stars were a black cloth with holes in it and light behind.
We need to take responsibility and educate people. That's why black folks don't like me. I always say it's our responsibility to make safe neighborhoods. It's our job to get them cleaned up.
The black experience isn't exclusively slavery/civil rights/Obama.
There was nothing there but black water and American fire power.
Even during my youth, I can recall very few black people living on any kind of public assistance. People were working, doing some kind of job that was useful to the community.
According to research,when given a choice, babies choose gold. It's my favourite colour after black and red.
Nowhere, absolutely nowhere, has there ever been a hint, not even a whisper, that a Black person was involved in the assassination of the president. But that's the kind of thing you have in this movie.
I like America; I enjoy being there. Some people can't stand the insincerity - I love the waiter asking me how my day has been, the can-do culture there. I love the fact that again, you are visible in America. You turn the TV on, there are black politicians, black policemen, black soldiers.
What's more important than who's going to be the first black manager is who's going to be the first black sports editor of the New York Times.
We have a lion, tiger, liger, which is the father is a lion and the mother is a tiger, black and spotted leopard, mountain lion, Asian leopard cats. Weve got a tremendous number of the exotic feline.
As a freshman at Stanford University - a young black man - when O.J. Simpson was acquitted of murder, it was a joyful moment. I was happy, absolutely. It wasn't necessarily a matter of whether he was guilty or innocent, per se, it was a matter of finally seeing someone who looked like me have the justice system work in their favor.
So for Bullitt, I just put my black hat back on.
Even drawing gray hair at all is difficult to render in black and white.
We put stereotypes on ourselves. Everybody does that. But I think it's just a little harder for black kids to just be who they are.
Think about how much fashion profits from black culture and how underrepresented we are in the industry. If you insist on using black celebrities to peddle your merchandise and add a cool factor to your front row, it is indecent to not care about the plights of that person's community.
You know, one of the things I like about this world, or at least I like about the way we're presenting this world, is these issues are terribly complicated - not nearly as black and white as we're led to believe.
As would-be songwriters, our interest was in black music and black music only. We wanted to write songs for black voices.
We look at young black kids with a scowl on their face, walking a certain way down the block with their sweatpants dangling, however, with their hoodies on. And folks think that this is a show of power or a show of force. But I know, because I've been among those kids, it ultimately is fear.
I personally don't feel any pressure to make jokes about multiple baby-fathers and stereotypical black jokes, because one, that's just not my life, and two, I wouldn't even sound right talking about those things.
When the doctors showed me an X-ray of my brain, they pointed to a black hole on the upper left side and told me that all memory from that spot was dead. I thought to myself that I hoped that's where I kept 'The Orange Blossom Special.'
Things were tough. Segregation was all around - in the schools, the buses, the restaurants, the theaters. But Dr. King worked hard for black people to have a fair share.
White people really deal more with God and black people with Jesus.
I'm a vagabond. I live out of one suitcase. I feel very comfortable in black. I feel very uncomfortable in anything else than black.
